thegamersdungeon.com is a gaming blog for PC and console gamers who are interested in several genres from rpg to strategy, adventure, and action. We focus on classic computer games but also write articles on XboxOne, Playstation4 and retro consoles such as Nes / Snes.

Diablo III is soon-to-be-released Action-RPG title by Blizzard made for PC. It stays true to it's predecessor Diablo II. The game has been in making for several years now, and was first announced at June 28, 2008. The actual release date hasn't yet been defined, although it's most likely to be out early 2012.

It's most likely my most awaited game #1 at the moment now after Skyrim has been released. Sure Diablo series have been more action emphasized and hack'n'slash style games -- leaning more towards Action-RPG -- than true RPG, but still I always loved the theme in Diablo games. Plus, even if they're more of Action-RPGs, they still lean towards classic 90's games more than modern PC games. Even if you look at the graphics in gameplay, it's very "old school" fashioned with it's top-down view and artistic interface.

Friday, 25 November 2011

Or so can be read from between the lines from blog of Joshua Robin, who states that he is working to "create a major new unannounced IP for a AAA game company" -- describing his work as "a sole writer for a major unannounced sequel" from Visceral Games, who developed previous Dante's Inferno title.

Shortly after the statement, there's a link to the Super Bowl Commercial for the first Dante's Inferno game, which reading from between the lines states, that Visceral would be working on sequel for the game franchise.

At this summer Visceral had job adverts, firstly looking for an environmental artist to work on "the sequel to a major new IP at award-winning Visceral game" -- which was continued few months later with another job advert to hire a new recruit to "work sequel to a major new IP at the awar-winning Visceral Games, creators of Dead Space and Dante's Inferno".

Dante's Inferno was an action-adventure game released at 2010 by Visceral Games and published by Electronic Arts for Xbox and PS3. The game was known of a medieval style with heaven and hell type of setting, taking place in Nine Stages of Hell, based very loosely on the classic Book. As a main character you had sort of medieval knight, Dante, with Death's Scythe and Holy Cross as weapons. He also was able to use numerous magical attacks. The game was viewed in 3rd person and gameplay was quite regular hack'n'slash.

Dante's Inferno might not have been the most memorable game around 2010. I myself do love classic heaven and hell setting, but the game was quite basic, offering same old. It had quite average receiving in media with for example GameSpot rating the game 6.5/10 while average might have been close to 7.5. Console gamers might have given the game bit better receiving, some even loving it.

We'll see what happens since this is all yet to be speculation if the game ever gets made, that's not to say there wouldn't be masses of action-adventure-games coming out lately, so Visceral better come up with something authentic and fresh changes compared to first.

New Star Wars franchise MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) called "The Old Republic" has started it's free to play Beta today! If you're eager to get to pre-test this game before the release then I suggest you read on.

SWTOR is massive MMORPG located in Star Wars universe, developed currently by Bioware (Austin, Edmonton divisions) -- this is also Bioware's debut into MMORPG market. The game was first time announced to be in making 21th October 2008 -- and now three years later it will be finally released. The official release date in North America and Europe is 20th December 2011 and it will be released for PC only. It's rumored that game has cost around $135 Million dollars -- being one of the most expensive games ever created.

To get to play Star Wars: The Old Republic free Beta, you must first apply as game-tester which can be done at this address and you might need to wait a day before they activate your Beta tester account. Also be sure to read quotation just below to not miss your chance. I just registered myself to try it out this weekend. Good luck and have fun!

Also, if you are waiting your game-tester status to be approved, or for some reason didn't get it -- you can still watch SWTOR Live:

"How do I sign up for the chance to test Star Wars: The Old Republic? (From official site)

"First, make sure you are a registered member of the Star Wars: The Old Republic Community. If you’re not already a member, click here to become one today! Be sure to check the box to indicate you are interested in becoming a tester. If you’re already a member, go to the Game Testing Portal page to begin the registration process. If you are selected, you will receive notification via email with more details.

The game is more accurately located in time 3700 years becore the raise of Galactic Empire, and approx. 300 years after the happenings of Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic. Galaxy has divided in two, Sith Empire has reappeared and attacked to Galactic Republic and that's where you step in the story. Players will have to choose their faction at first, belonging either to Sith Empire or Galactic Republic, which will make up classic good/evil theme to the game."

(Star Wars: The Old Republic Trailer)

What do we know about SWTOR so far:

While SWTOR divides players into their own classes, they still should have hybrid abilities to each class being able to tackle many different situations, so choosing certain class wouldn't cut you off from certain mission favoring other type of class

Player will belong either to Sith Empire or Galactic Republic, thus dividing the game into classic good/evil factions, yet the developers want to differentiate faction stuff and morale, allowing individual player beloging to either faction have still be able to have morality in anything between "light and dark"

Players choices react along the very dynamic gameworld, and do permanently affect it opening up new possible storylines, or cutting down the others, as well as affect to NPCs (Non player characters) and interaction between them and the player.

There will be large selection of companions. The player can assign up to five companions carry out crafting and gathering tasks. Crafting is known as "passive crafting" whereas the companions will do the crafting tasks asynchronously to the player's adventures in game world, meaning they will be able to create items for you. Assigning companions to gather will allow them to gather resources out in the World. Mission skills will allow companions to perform acts on player's behalf, thus gaining the player light or dark side influence etc.

Every character in-game features full dialog including the player's character itself, thus enhancing the gameplay experience

Tuesday, 22 November 2011

Time to take a look back to computer gaming history. This time in the spotlight is game developing company called New World Computing. Many of us who were into PC gaming early to late 90's will surely remember the name 3DO, publisher and parent company for game developers actually behind the titles -- New World Computing. [...]

Sunday, 20 November 2011

Well, since there isn't unarmed skill in Skyrim, one would assume the claws actually will be quite useless -- well this isn't necassarily true. Claws do normally 15 damage, but keep in mind that this is damage per hand. You can play claws as if you did dual wield for example daggers. Doing two handed power attack is not bad at all, of course you cannot block with claws, which is a minus.

Now 15 damage at the beginning stage of the game isn't that bad, it's actually quite good. Claws might turn out to be useless in later game though, which is why you probably should use weapons to raise up one-handed or two-handed skills and use claws in special occasions. One of these are the quests where you have to bully someone for example to pay out a price. Thieves guild first Quest is fine example where you have to rough up three people to get them to pay, and one of the dialogue choices is to "Brawl" where your claws will become handy.

Now when you feel that 15 Damage as dual wielding is getting too low, there's still a change that you'll do pretty well with "dual-wielding" claws, if you find the right gear. There is gear existant in Skyrim that will improve your unarmed attacks damage. I've just came around Gloves Of Pugilist which adds 10 points damage extra per hand for unarmed strikes.

(Gloves Of The Pugilist do 10 extra damage in hand-to-hand)

Now that'd make my each claw to do 25 damage, which certainly takes down Riften Guard half way faster than what I can do by dual wielding two Dwarven Daggers with 12 damage on each -- even with the bonus from perks. Gloves Of Pugilist can be found from an unarmed Bandit inside Ratway (which is by the way your way to Thieves Guild also). Ratway entrance is located in Riften city. Just seek the door below round shaped market place in middle of Riften, near water level.

I'd assume that with finding your right gear which grants bonus to unarmed, Khajiit Claws could well be very competitive choice for one-handed weapons close to the halfway to game. Ofcourse that requires you to find the right items with Unarmed bonus..

There is still one more thing you can do, thanks for one of our readers bringing this up, you can pick up Fists Of Steel perk from Heavy Armor skill tree -- It will grant your hand-to-hand combat as much extra damage than what is your gloves armor rating. Note that the gloves of course have to be heavy armor. The perk requires only 30 skill in Heavy Armor and it second perk to catch, so should be relatively easy even if you're not heavy armor character. It's not stackable with Gloves Of The Pugilist bonus though, because the Perk is for Heavy Armor gloves only while Gloves of Pugilist are Light Armor.

You should be able to however disenchant Gloves Of The Pugilist to learn the very effect of it - extra unarmed damage - I haven't tried this myself and don't know anyone who has, but it's possible you then could enchant Heavy Armor gloves with the enchantment you learned -- thus your enchanted Heavy Armor gloves with unarmed damage bonus now being stackable with Fists Of Steel perk! Thanks for anonymous reader about this tip, if anyone tries this and confirms it works, please let us know! :-)

X-Com Apocalypse was third instalment in this known strategy game franchise. It was released for PC in 1997 by Microprose/Atari and was developed by Culture Brain. To review and rate this game honestly, I'm going to totally ignore comparison to earlier X-Com games and review this as it's own game. It has same classic elements, but it shouldn't be ignored just because it doesn't present same globe-view of the whole world than two earlier predecessors did, but rather only one big city (you can still get multiple bases).

I can still quite understand why some people totally don't remember this game or ignored it back when it was released because it made some changes to the game's very core elements. X-Com franchise was always about turn-based strategy and world protection against aliens, while Apocalypse turned the game into real-time/turn-based hybrid with change to choose either, but area to defend was just one city. Now that's not so bad otherwise, but in Apocalypse the turn-based action (franchises original trademark) was actually a bit flawed while real-time worked very nicely - some people might have overlooked Apocalypse because of that. Now enough about comparison.

X-Com Apocalypse is a strategy game, where you lead an organization called X-Com to defend city called Mega-Primus against alien invasion. The game can be divided to three major sequences: city view (real-time vehicle combat), base view (build and research), and in-building view (turn/real-time combat of your choice). You are in charge of an independent organization funded by Government with weekly salary of which amount depends of how well you performed on previous week, and how much damages you caused to the city in your missions (shooting down skyscraper while intending to hit an UFO doesn't please Government of the owner company of the building too much!). Other than the Government, there are several other organizations in the city who own rest of the buildings around the city-map view. Some organizations have different jobs around town too: for example Megapol is the city police, who sells you some basic equipment and keeps the city gangs and thugs under control.

If certain organization falls under alien influence or hostile towards you for some reason, then the sale prices for you in markets go up, no more cheap grenades for you, and they may even attack you randomly when they see your vehicles or aircraft on the move to a mission. Government is the last one you want to see getting under alien influence, because you see, they are the ones funding your organizations work against alience. What do you think will happen if their lead falls under the influence?

Communication and relations between computer led organizations and player are very superficial though and don't provide many options and choices to make. It's rather based on simple tasks who attacks you and who is friendly, or even keen to help out if battle takes place inside the city. Relations also define partly market prices, but that's pretty much it. One of the rare actions organizations may take is to treathen you demanding a tribute if you have bad relationships with them, yet you two are not in war currently (disagreeing would lead into war though). Not much diplomacy options are available in Apocalypse. It feels like Culture Brain left this part of X-Com Apocalypse bit unifinished, which is a shame since it could had made the game true classic and had a lot of extra potential. Better interaction could have had huge boost in the game's interactivity and scheming withing the city. Only thing really means anything with organizations is who dislikes or likes you, some are more important allies than the others, too.

(City-view of Mega-Primus is quite well detailed but graphics still look bland)

Apocalypse gives pretty varying choices to fool around with your weekly salary. The main heart for things take place within your own home base (or several, you can buy more than one). From there you can micro-manage your organizations needs starting with buying and arming warfare: vehicles like Valkyrie Interceptor (battle aircraft), tanks, assault bikes, and the soldiers as well. The base consist of limited space presented in grids, which on the beginning is only partly built up. You can spend cash building up research laboratories and workshops (to create own weaponry), alien containers to capture live alien forms for research, defending system, and other cool stuff. Yes, in start of every new game you will be arranged a home base, which position within the city varies on each game play (but isn't big factor on your success). The base is home for your soldiers in reserve waiting for an alien encounter missions, scientists researching any alien technology you have captured, or live alien forms you which may have retrieved successfully from your missions.

Researching alien technology in your home base's science laboratories is a huge part of the game, and teaches you how to make a new equipment such as more effective weaponry, which is made in your base's workshops. The base at very beginning has only minimal amount of workshops, vehicle bays, and alien labs, but you can expand it later with necessary funds, and it's not only recommended but crucial, because researching is key to your victory in X-Com Apocalypse. Retrieving some alien artifacts from combat to your home base is always rewarding experience as is finishing up research for an important artifact granting you some special technology. You may also buy additional new bases around the city when you get a bit more rich.

So now you most likely ask, what about the action and combat? Other than the micromanagement with organization relationships, buying and arming equipment, soldiers and vehicles, building base and doing research, there's the real action waiting in X-Com Apocalypse. Combat is split in two different sequences. First form of combat takes place in the isometric city screen, where you can view the whole city and it's buildings. The city feels nicely alive: it has vehicles of different organizations on their own missions or patrolling 24/7, and some random encounters between police and local gangs do also take place time to time. City is also fully destroyable which is cool feature. During firefight buildings will collapse and roads blow up preventing tanks to move (never rely on road warfare!). It has little drawback though, hitting a wall of a skyscraper with one shot of laser might bring down the whole house (bit over-the-top perhaps?). And you know from who's gonna pay for that from his budget - right? Also organizations will dislike you easily after such accident and turn hostile. It's nice addition in all but misfire will cause sometimes extravagant damage, which can be a bit annoying.

The UFO invasions also take place in the city screen. There are several portals across the city, from where the UFOs will enter time to time and take against Mega-Primus and you. To take them out you will have to use your armed vehicles and lead to them battle quick before they disappear back to the gates. This part of the game is nothing special, not awesomely executed, but not bad either. And there's always that "tension" in the air when you hear sound of teleportation and read the text "UFO spotted" in game interface x5, hoping nothing too bad came you from the gates. UFO invasions in city-view are sort of nice mini-games, and encounters will most often be quite quickly over. You basically just give command to your fleet to attack certain UFO and they fight automatically. You can give some superficial attack orders to your vehicles such as flight altitude (low-med-high) but nothing too tactical unfortunately (but hey it UFO encounters were not much more tactical in original X-Com either). The outcome very much depends on your weapon arsenal attached to your vehicles versus how big UFOs come out of the gates. It's still very cool and rewarding experience to get shoot down actual UFOs though, since Apocalypse is relatively hard difficulty game with no much extra bucks to spend on expensive vehicles. This way you're always happy when you succeed, but always afraid what will you face this time with your puny warfare.

(Equipping your fleet - Valkyrie Interceptor)

But the soul of X-Com Apocalypse is the in-building-battles between your infantry and aliens, which happens inside several different buildings around Mega-Primus like: factories, government buildings, hydrofarms, police stations and even inside U.F.Os if you managed to take one down nicely without blowing them up. Usually battles trigger by you getting an alarm of aliens invading certain building and therefore you're called for help. Regularity of alien missions depends how many organizations are currently influenced by aliens, which depends how many successful / unsuccessful anti-alien missions you've done in the past. That is totally cool too. The game keeps track which organizations aliens have taken over and by how big percentage. Alert missions often take place after UFOs have successfully invaded a building in city-view UFO-invasion sequence.

You may also freely invade and attack to any building in city screen yourself without any alert at all if that's what you wish. Raise some hell? It's cool feature, you may actually raid any organization's building you wish, although that will most likely make them hostile towards you (no reason for them not to be angry for you raiding them). There's a cult called "Cult of Silius" that are alien worshippers and usually highly probable to be under alien influence -- I love to raid those bastards time to time, and steal their equipment. Another cool feature is that when ever UFOs attack the town, they may occasionally come and invade your own base! Every time that happens, it's time for a base-defend mission. A cool feature about this is that you can actually see the base you've build up such as it is. Your scientists are included realistically in the base and you better get them to in a single room behind soldiers fast. A feature that causes chaos in base invasion is that starting positions are quite randomized for each group of scientists and soldiers as well as aliens, so you never know where they lurk. These battles can grant you very valuable alien artifacts and items if you do it right.

(Many objects are fragile -- when you cause damages during a mission, be prepared to pay up)

The infantry combat ("in-building-view") can be done, in exception to the previous X-Com games, in either real-time or turn-based strategy mode. I think they succeeded to make both of these working ones and combat engine is pretty nice, but I do prefer real-time in this game and feel it's more perfected in Apocalypse than slightly slowly working turn-based combat with slightly stupid AI. Aliens will run back and forth behind a corner when you spot them, making battles a bit clumsy, thus lacking a final kick. The AI problem arises especially in turn-based, but works better in real-time. In addition, in real-time combat the game's atmosphere is more hectic and immersion is better than in turn-based. At first when you enter the battle, there an anxious wait and eerie silence, you never know what you're facing this time. You can feel the tension each time and that's what makes Apocalypse (as well as it's predecessors) a great game. You may hear alien growling somewhere around, but cannot see it. When your squad finally face aliens, all hell breaks loose, and things get hectic - it's just fully enjoyable experience. Luckily Real-Time strategy mode allows pausing game for giving additional orders for your soldiers which works perfectly.

Combat engine all in all works great, you either have action-points to spend each turn in turn-based mode, or are dependant of your agent's reflexes in real-time mode to make first strike. Your agents have various stats affecting how well they perform in battlefield and yes, they will develop into better soldiers over time, if you're able to keep them alive that is. The stats bring nice rpg-like element to Apocalypse, and it's always a joy to see your own soldiers progress. They also have military type of ranks which they gain after successful battles. They have mental attributes which affect their mental state in combat and resistance against mind-control. For example someone with poor bravery is tends to panic in battlefield and run uncontrollably around like a chicken being practically target practise for those aliens out there.

(Varying stats bring personality to your different agents)

Weaponry in this game is very nice and varying. It's quite not sci-fi brother of Jagged Alliance 2, but there's a lot of weaponry to buy. And what's best, when the game progresses, you eventually get better weaponry by either researching alien tech or waiting for new ones to come available for market. For infantry you have anything ranging from plasma rifles to laser guns, from regular mini guns to alien weaponry. There are several bullet types to load for your weapons from regular to exploding bullets and ones that will set anything on fire raising hell and make walls eventually collapse within the heat of a battle (hectic!). Other than that you have wide range of explosives, grenades (regular, smoke, gas) and Psi-Gun which will aim to control the mind of aliens. Medikits are there to heal bleeding wounds, and are extremely crucial!

If buildings are totally destructible in city-view, it's almost the same in in-building-view. When really kicking it up and shooting like a maniac, walls and pillars will go down intentionally or unintentionally. Very cool element to the game indeed and nice feature in 1997 game engine. Aliens themselves are interesting in X-Com Apocalypse and it's always nice to enter a new mission not knowing what you'll face. Especially brainsuckers are a pain in the ass. They are almost a flashback to original Alien movies reminding of those little things attaching to your face. In Apocalypse they attack to your skull and suck your agent's brains out replacing the organism with their own, making your unit basically a braindead shooting anything in range, basically killing your soldier in the moment of successful brain invasion.

One negative thing of X-Com Apocalypse is it's graphics. While the pictures of aliens in research lab and so on look great, they don't look so good as in-game models in the battlefield. They look like cartoon'ish low detail sprites and fail to impress. The city view, other than having quite much different buildings, looks quite bland. But I think one should be easily to overcome the problem of unimpressive graphics, for many other areas in this game shine. Another thing lacking is amount of different types of building-maps available. There's decent amount, but after playing a while one would certainly hope more of them, since after playing a while you've seen them all and basically are going to do same building-maps over and over again.

Bottom line

X-Com Apocalypse is quite complex and large scale game all-in-all with reasonably high difficulty level providing fine challenge for long time to come. It also does have some fine replay value if you give it a break once in a while. The game has various pleasant areas like micromanagement of organization relationships (although superficial), and micromanagement within your home base: building it up, researching alien tech, training your own agents and seeing their stats to raise (which is a real treat). It also features decent mini-game combat in world map (vehicles) and more intense fine combat within buildings (infantry).

While X-Com Apocalypse is not perfect in several areas, it offers so much to play that in my opinion any strategy-game fan should definitely try it out, and not to compare it too hardly to previous too X-Com titles -- you may enjoy this game a lot! If you don't care for little poor graphics and AI some issues, the game is great overall experience which manages to keep things interesting very long towards the end with always new equipment to acquire, new UFOs and new alien technology to research, and eventually when you research enough you'll also figure out how to enter behind the gates aliens come from, but I don't want to spoil more. Oh, the ambient musical score by Richard Wells is also very cool: totally mysterious and sinister mood-setter for Apocalypse.

The game may come very close to it's predecessors in quality. Despite being flawed diamond that in several areas, overall experience Apocalypse offers is much better than how press originally rated it. I used to love this game, and I still think it's very good today if you get it to work under Win 7 or XP that is.

Friday, 18 November 2011

A tip for Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - the Role-Playing Game for PC, Xbox360 and PS3. Want to have bit of a challenge for your thief character? I have a place for you - a nice place - with several guards and some dwemer equipment to loot. If you're not at the point in the game where Dwemer stuff has become useless yet, and you haven't done Jarl of Markarth Quests yet, then I urge you to take up this challenge!

It requires decent sneaking skill, opening lots of Adept and Expert locks, and very agile movement along the right timing and path. What I challenge you to do, is to head up to Markarth and take your direction up to all the stairways to very west-most building, titled "Understone Keep".

Enter it and turn directly to your right. There guard tells you that there's no entrance to Dwemer Museum without permission and only Jarl can grant this. Sneak past him and enter the door ahead, to break into Dwemer Museum.

Here's a large room with about five or six guards walking their paths, spending certain amount of time standing at one spot, before moving to the next. Display cases include Dwemer weaponry and armor, and are Adept-Expert level. They are mostly on tough places too!

Try to catch some treasury here and share with others how well you did, or how did you fail? Note that since you're trespassing, you need to get in and out without getting noticed at any point or you'll be arrested for trespassing and lose all your stuff you stole. You can also stealth to the other side of room which leads to Dwemer Laboratory, but it hasn't got much good stuff in.

I did my break-in with 56-58 of Sneak, and 43-47 Lockpick, Lvl 17-18 character and Master Difficulty level. By the way, a great place to raise some Lockpicking with loads of locked stuff inside.

Falkreath is southern medium sized city in Skyrim, south from Riverwood and Whiterun near the mountaineous border of Skyrim. It's got an armor and weapons shop, alchemy shop, an Inn and it's led by a Jarl of Falkreath. There's a handful of Quests in Falkreath which will probably take a few days to accomplish. Unfortunately you cannot buy a house here even after Jarl Quests.

Quests in Falkreath are heavily related to Vampires and Werewolves, and may not be a good quest for under level 10 character as some of the so called "bosses" are actually quite tough. I was around level 10-15 when I did this with on Master Difficulty, so if you're up to that then read forward.

Map of Falkreath

A first thing to do is to resupply and check places to buy things. What will come handy in the quests of Falkreath is Cure Disease because large amount of vampires, also anything of Resist Magicka or Drain Magicka will help. If you're an archer then get loads of bows as it's one of the best ways to finish quite many of the quests. Stack up with healing potions and perhaps stamina and magicka depending of your character. Check an Inn for rumors and a companion if you'vent got one (I didn't find one at Falkreath but perhaps it's random so it's always good to check). Places of Interest in Falkreath contain:

Gray Pine Goods

A decent general all-around store first house on right from western gate.

Lod's House

On days around 10am-6pm a Blacksmith called Lod will barter with you about Armor and Weapons. He won't he in his house but on a balcony with an anvil instead. Second house on right from western gate with an anvil sign.

Dead Man's Drink Inn

Your place for some quests related to Falkreath or totally miscellaneous. Didn't find companion here but check anyway. First house on left from western gate.

Jarl's Longhouse

Your place for Jarl's Questline. Follow road straight up from western gate untill a big house with wooden fence and blue Stag-Banners.

Books in Falkreath:

There's a few that you can read / steal that increase your skills. First is located in Corpselight Farm's House second house on left. Enter house, on front right from door in bookcase is the book called Racial Phylogeny that grants +Restoration.

Second is in Dengeir's House, third house on left from western gate at a crossroads. Enter the house, right side of door in bookcase. Read the book called A Tale of Dro’Zira, and it will trigger a quest "Forbidden Legend" (Investigate the Gauldur Legend). This adds a map marker.

Third is located in Jarl's Longhouse, from west gate, follow road straight up and you come to large house with blue stag banners. Get in, first room on right at back of the room, in a Expert level locked display case is a book called Guide To Better Thieving. It grants you +Pickpocketing.

Fourth one is located in Falkreath Barracks, the most eastern house in Falkreath. Enter house and head to upstairs, on one of the chests which are next to the beds, is a book called A Legendary City of Sancre Tor. - gives +Two-Handed Weapons

Fifth one is tricky, it's located in Temple of Dibella (Markarth) and doesn't really belong to Falkreath but anyway here how it goes: you'll be taken to the temple (Markarth) after losing a drinking competition to man named Sam Guevenne in Dead Mans Drink Inn. Im quite certain you'll have to finish up all the other Falkreath Quests before this is triggered. The book is called 2920, Sun's Dawn, v2 and it's located by taking path downstairs to Inner Sanctum by Expert Locked door. In middle of ritual room, look to southwestern bookcase and search it. - gives +Illusion.

After stacking up anything you need:

You should head to your first quest. Head into Jarl's Longhouse with wooden fence and blue stag banners. Enter the house and walk right to the Jarl who's sitting on his chair.

Note: There's an issue with the first Jarl Quest to trigger but we're yet to solve what causes it. For some reason dialogue option to "ask work from Jarl" doesn't always show up. It might be a bug. Try to travel back and forth and talk to everyone around town. If you figure out what actually makes the dialogue option available, please let us know! I never had this problem myself, but some players do.

This is a piece of cake, head down to road back towards western gate 'till you come to Dead Man's Drink Inn on your right (looking from Jarl's House), get in and talk to bartender Valga Vicinia, buy one Black-Briar Mead from her. Now head back to Jarl and give him the mead. Quest Complete.

Now talk to Jarl again and ask for more work. This time he has had enough of one of his bandits, well actually all of them. He tells you that they are located in one of his "Holds" and he wants you to kill their Leader. Take the job, this will start your second quest called:

By "the Hold" Jarl means Embershard Mine, this is where you need to head into. It's located southwest from Riverwood left side of the river, or northwest from Helgen. Fast travel to either one of those and take direction towards the Mine. No need for any special preparations, few healing potions won't be for bad though. This quest is moderately easy.

When you enter to the Embershard Mine, there is one bandit guarding, take him down and head inside. Embershard Mine is perhaps a bit less than medium sized mine with regular bandits and one "boss" bandit, which is a bit tougher. It's got only one trap, some low level treasury, a Clairvoyance Spellbook. No special puzzles.

Embershard Mine map

When inside head down the slope, watch out for a trap right at the end of the slope (falling rocks if I remember correctly)! Walk near to wall carefully. You'll enter a large room with wooden bridge, with a level under it and above it where leads a path. There are three bandits here, moderately easy, kill them.

The large room with a bridge and three bandits

Get over the bridge, don't bother going down the stairs to right as it only leads down to water level with dead end and nothing mentionable, follow the path straight up instead, take a turn to left at the T-crossroads and walk up, you'll end up to a ledge seen high left in the picture above. At the ledge is a Lever, pull it and it will lower a second bridge which extends from the one you crossed earlier.

Follow the lowered down bridge

When you lower the bridge, two bandits will come from other side of it looking for you and most likely they'll head right to you to the top ledge. Kill both. Now get down to the bridge you crossed earlier and follow the new lowered down extended bridge. You'll face a slope that leads down, follow the path and keep on eye the right side wall - when you come upon "a whole", peek into it and grab Clairvoyance Spellbook on a table next to the hole.

Prepare for one bandit ambush you, head down to slope and you'll come to 4 way crossroads with a bandit, kill it. From crossroads to:

Right: there's a room you saw through the hole - got some treasures, check it out. I got me a Orcish Bow here.

Left: dead end with nothing mentionable.

Forward: Continue here after searching the treasure room. This leads you to one huge room, which is also the last one.

The Final Room with "Bandit Leader" (boss)

In this room is the Bandit Leader you're set out to kill with two other weaker bandit types. Shouldn't be a big problem. One is located low right down the stairs at anvil. You could take him out first. The leader walks an hanging bridge right in front of waterwall (in the picture) and one more bandit is around the bridges also. Just hack'n'slash the leader and last bandit after taking out the one at the anvil.

After done, take stairs down and check the anvil at the low floor. There's a few ignots too, this is a good little place to practice some smithing with the anvil and ignots - you can improve your current armors by using the ignots.

When you're done, head over the bridges in the room and and move past the waterfall towards very end of mine, this path leads you out back to Skyrim. Easy wasn't it?

Fast travel back to Jarl of Falkreath and tell the Bandit Leader is dead.

Now ask Jarl for more work, this will be the last part. Follow this order presented here, but notice this: the last man to help might not show up untill you finish some other Falkreath quests first so just try and if you don't find him, complete other quests first!

So at this point Jarl will ask you to help out three people of Falkreath for you to earn some reputation before you can be entitled Thane of Falkreath - which you will be after you're done with the quest.

Quest: Miscellaneous - Help Out People of Falkreath (3), (Triggered by Jarl Siddgeir)

There are most likely few more possibilities of people to help, but there's at least three of which we are presenting next. The deeds you're set to do for help are very small and this quest is easy sort of one. There are two larger Quests (Ill Met by Moonlight and A Daedra's Best Friend) around Falkreath who are given by Falkreath folks, but these will not count in to the last Jarl Quest, so don't do them at least before you have helped out 2/3 people out. At this point you may do other quests IF the last man to help doesn't show up otherwise - otherwise leave the large ones to last.

Help first citizen: At daytime head to the Dead Man's Drink Inn at western gate, in front of the Inn is a pile of logs where you will find an Elf, who will ask you to do him a favor. Accept it, and he'll ask you to bring ashes of his dead friend to other elf called Runil to Falkreath Graveyard. This is easy task, just head west side of Falkreath into the woods (Behind the Inn and other houses) and very close by is the graveyard, where should be Runil. Give him the ashes and task is done. 1/3 people helped for Jarl. At this point if you meet man called Mathies in graveyard, talk to him and he'll tell you about his daughter who got killed. Take the quest but don't complete it yet.

Note: If the Elf doesn't show up, do first Jarl quest first.

Reward: 250 Gold

Help second citizen: At daytime, take main road from western gate 'till you see Corpselight Farm on your left (second house from western gate) and hit's backyard, or if you're at Graveyard still, head back east till you hit the town and keep on eye for a small farm field with plants and vegetables. View the plants 'till you find some Gabbage, now take Gabbage (one is enough and it's not considered stealing).

Next step is to find Mathies, who can be found either at the very farm you just took the Gabbage from, from Dead Man's Drink Inn at the last room on right, or at the Graveyard. Now talk to Mathies and see option "I've Got some Gabbage to Sell". (I can't actually remember if this quest had to be started first so if you don't see this option - go through all his dialogue options untill you see this one shows up). Sell Mathies one Gabbage and he'll give you small amount of gold. This grants also the second citizen helped for Jarl and now you got 2/3 and one more to go.

Help third citizen: at this point you need to find man named Dengeir The Stuhn. He's in Dead Man's Drink Inn at days.

Dengeir of Stuhn at Dead Man's Drink Inn

Now there's a chance Dengeir won't be able to be found yet. Check the Inn, and here's what you have to do if he doesn't show up yet: Read this Guide ahead 'till you find Guide to two Quests in Falkreath, and how to complete them. These are A "Daedra's Best Friend" triggered by Lod the Blacksmith or Town's Gate Guard, and "Ill Met By Moonlight" triggered by Mathies.

Do Ill Met By Moonlight First, because before this I didn't see a dialogue option with Lod to start the Daedra Quest. When you've done with it, check the Inn again for Dengeir and if he still doesn't show up - do A Daedra's Best Friend. At this point Lod should have his dialogue option about "a lost dog" and you can also check the western town gate if guard triggers it. After these Quests are done, Dengeir will show up at it's latest and you can return back to this chapter of the Guide.

If you found Dengeir at this point, talk to him. You'll learn his story how he once was a Jarl of Falkreath but was plotted against by Imperial and current Jarl, demoted to "a Thane" and then driven out from court of Jarl all together. Dengeir believes Lod The Blacksmith is an imperial spy - for he has seen Lod writing long letters to somewhere.

Denger is a bit paranoidic and asks you to to break into Lod's House, look for a "private letter", steal it and bring it to him. Accept the Quest and head up to Lod's house, which is second house on right from the western gate. You risk perhaps least to get caught, surprisingly, on day time after 10pm before 6pm. At this time Lod is smithing at his anvil on balcony of the house, so there's none inside. You need to pick the lock, but it's only novice level. Make sure no guard sees you though!

Once inside the house, in front on right is a round table where the private letter is located on, take it and bring it to Dengeir. Turns out Lod is not an Imperial spy, but they are making him to smith more swords and armor for them than normally. The quest for helping Dengeir is now completed. You can talk him about open grave in the graveyard and trigger his second and last Quest right here (Miscellaneous: Kill Vighar the Vampire), actually take it for it to be ready when you're in phase to go for it. This counts as a third citizen helped, and you can return to Jarl to finish up the Quest.

This was last one of Jarl's quests in Falkrath, so you're now done with those.

Reward: 400 Gold and title achieved: Thane of Falkreath

Next up you have four more quests to complete which are triggered by someone in Falkreath, of which two are Major and two are Miscellaneous. So read ahead.

This quest is moderately hard especially for low lever character. But has only one tough point which is the end boss. Other than that, it requires some time and running. You'll be set to take out a large werewolf in the end.

To start this quest (if you didn't take it already while delivering some Gabbage to Mathies earlier on) you'll have to talk to Mathies, who's usually in the last room of right hand side in Dead Man's Inn (first house on the left from west gate of Falkreath), or he can be on farm behind Corpselight Farm's House, or at the Graveyard.

Start conversation with him about her killed daughter and he'll tell you how some "beast" ripped her apart. He claims this beast was a man called Sindig and asks you to speak to him. Sindig is located within Falkreath Barracks (Jail Section) which is the most southeastern house in the city. Head to the barracks and enter in.

Head upstairs and look for a book on a chest which is next to beds. You'll find a book called "Legendary City of Sancre Tor", read it and you'll get +Two-Handed.

Now head back down to entry level and take stairs down from there to jail section where you'll find Sindig behind the bars. Stand next to the bars and talk to him. He'll tell you that he didn't actually intend to kill the little girl, but it was caused by a ring, which he had stolen earlier from Daedric Lord Hircine, so Hircine cursed the ring.

Sindig turns out to be a Werewolf, who stole the ring because he thought it would keep his lycantrophy under control, but since the was cursed it instead turned things worse. So he enraged due the ring and killed the girl. Sindig will ask you to gain Hircine's favor by appeasing him, after which Hircine should show up to you and you could ask him to remove the curse from the ring. To appease Hircine - Sindig tells you that he had tracked down "a great beast" in forest, but since hes barred in he cannot hunt down the beast, so he'll ask you to do this instead.

Accept the quest and head up to the forest, follow your map marker. The beast is a big White Stag, which is no danger at this point. However the Stag is very quick and will run off easily while regenerating it's health, which can be annoyance. Eventually it should run to a dead end to ruins of some sort where you'll get at last to slay it. At this point you might notice that the cursed ring Sindig gave you cannot be removed, it's stuck on your finger.

While you've got the Stag killed, Hircine will appear as a form of a Stag. Talk to him and request him to remove the curse from a ring. Hircine will agree to do this if you do him a favor. You'll be asked to kill a Rogue in Bloated Man's Grotto. Agree to kill the rogue which takes you to next phase of this quest. By the way "the rogue" is Sindig, who you'll soon meet in his werewolf form.

At this point it's wise to head up any major city and stack up healing and other necassary potions you feel your character will need in a battle. Sindig's gonna be very strong in melee and won't go down easily. After you're done with necassary preparations, head up to Bloated Man's Grotto.

You can get there fast traveling to either Riverwood, Bleak Falls Barrow or Whiterun, of which at least either of those marker you should have by now. The cave is on north side below of high mountains, so when you walk to it be sure to choose northern side of mountain to walk along, will save you time. If you use south side you'll have to go around the whole mountain which will take far longer.

Bloated Man's Grotto is small sized cave located west from Riverwood, Whiterun and Bleak Falls Barrow northern side below large mountain. As enemies it has Spriggan and Wolves normally - exception is when you're on Ill Met By Moonlight quest, when it will have only a Werewolf.

Entrance to Bloated Man's Grotto

Bloated Man's Grotto Map

Head inside the cave and walk the path down. You'll meet a dying Khajiit at campfire, who tells he and his friend party has been hunting a beast to appease Hircine, but the beast (Sindig as werewolf) is just too strong. Follow the path deeper into cave and you'll soon head into scary encounter. Suddenly a Werewolf (Sindig) appears above you on a ridge and asks you to let him be. Sindig basically gives you two chances:

1. Kill him and claim respect of Hircine - when you do this, prepare for a tough battle for Sindig won't go down easily and is very strong on melee, you should have lots of healing potions right now with you. Follow the cave little bit deeper through in and out the ruins 'till you find him back in the cave and take him down.

There is a trick available though if you feel you cannot take him, but it might take several tries before succeeding. I'm not sure if it works without doing it how I did so I suggest doing exactly like this: don't answer anything, just stand silently without picking any option untill Sindig says "Very well" then and disappears. Now head out of the cave, fast travel to Falkreath and head into Falkreath Barracks, go downstairs to the very jail Sindig was originally at.

Find out that Sindig is raging behind the bars in the jail cell in his werewolf form. Make a save! Pick a bow and archer him down. You can shoot through the bars. This is a bit tricky though, because when he dies, he almost 100% surely falls back from the door to further down his cell, which is huge problem. This cell door cannot be opened and you need to be next to him to skin him after killing him. If physics of Skyrim make him fall back to his cell, he'll be unreachable to skin thus jamming the quest.

This is what you do. Shoot him with bows (don't go too close to jail door) untill he has very little of hitpoints. Now go near almost next to jail door carefully, this will request you to be very quick after he drops down for you have to click his body before he falls out of reach. Approach little by little untill you are close enough for him to rage towards the door. If you're far enough he cannot reach to hit you. Use bow or magic to finish him off. When he falls down, immeatedly click his body before it's out of reach and you'll skin him. You need to give his skin to Hircine.

If you're too quick to skin, the quest part "Skin Sindig" doesn't trigger, you'll still get the skin and Hircine will appear, he will even accept the skin and last part of the quest gets completed. The quest will move up to completed quests and you'll get your reward, yet it shows that second last part "Skin Sindig" is unfinished. Now I don't think this matters any because you still get last part completed. But if you're suspicious, try to fool around with killing Sindig so that when he falls, you wait a second or two hoping he doesn't fall out of reach and you've time to trigger the part "skin Sindig" which will appear to the screen. Either that or repeat so many times that Sindig doesn't fall back too much and you can reach his body behind the bars. If hes close, try to crouch, it will give you more reach.

Finish Sindig up at his jail cell, make sure he doesn't fall to unreachable position

But I'm positive everything's alright even if second last part "Skin Sindig" isn't logged in completed parts of the quest, because you complete the last part anyway when you talk to Hircine and give out the skin.

After killing Sindig and skinning him, Hircine will appear to you - talk to him. He congratulates you for a job well done and destroys the cursed ring. You' ll give him hide of Sindig you just skinned and Hircine will make a special hide out of it. Quest complete. Congratulations.

This quest will involve a lots of dungeon crawling and vampires. To prepare yourself be sure to have a companion, cure disease (for vampirism), healing potions and perhaps any magic resistance equipment, because many of the vampires use a lot of magic (I'm quite certain that spell is Drain Life but I've yet to confirm this). You'll have to visit two caves, Haemar's Cavern/Haemar's Shame and Rimerock Burrow. This might be annoying quest since it's quite long, and just when you thought you finished it, you'll be sent for one more cave.

The quest is triggered by either a town guard at the west gate, or Lod will have a dialogue option about a dog, but you'll have to check both options. The quest also might not trigger before you have done at least one two first Jarl's Quests. I got mine to start when I have finished bringing Mead to Jarl (Jarl Quest 1) and killed the Bandit Leader for him (Jarl Quest 2). I had also helped 2/3 Falkreath citizen for Jarl (Jarl Quest 3), but couldn't find the last one yet, perhaps it required this and Ill Met By Moon to be done first.

Anyways, mine started so, that after done few Jarl quests and entering the city second or third time, a town guard ran to me and was asking if I had seen a dog in a forest, Lod has been asking around for he is missing one. So, quest doesn't trigger at this point, but you know that you'd now to visit Lod at Lod's House. He's at the anvil next to his house on daytime (Second house on right from the western gate).

Talk to Lod about the missing dog and he'll ask you to go into the forest for looking it. Accept the quest and head into forest from western gate. Follow the marker on your compass, the dog is not too far. When you approach the dog, you'll learn that it can talk. It tells you that it's actually some sort of a spirit, a servant of his Daedric Lord. Nevertheless the "dog" has had an argument with his master and is now asking for your help to reclaim his grace in the eyes of his master.

The dog will ask you to follow him into the Shrine of Clavicus Vile, where you'll talk to his master. Accept the quest. You'll have to go into Haemar's Shame (map marker was added to your map), a cave and a landmark, in quite far eastern mountains. At this point, if you like you can travel with the dog or fast-travel to closer marker in your map and then continue on foot from there. It's likely that the dog will get lost on the trip anyways, for at one point on Helgen gates a thief may attack you and dog will disappear. Don't worry, the dog will go automatically to the Shrine.

Fastest way is to fast-travel to Helgen (if you'vent got marker closer by) and then continue on foot from there. From Helgen, take a road to east up to mountains, there's a crossroads right after gate, take left road and you'll end up straight to Haemar's Shame. When you discover it, on right side of road is a cave entrance leading first into Haemar's Cavern (level 1) which leads to Haemar's Shame (level 2), where Shrine of Clavicus Vile is located at. Be prepared for some Vampire hunting.

Entrance to Haemar's Cavern / -Shame

Haemar's Cavern map (level 1)

Haemar's Shame (level 1)

Haemar's Cavern and -Shame is a two level dungeon, quite medium in size. It's located high on Eastern mountains from Falkreath and Helgen on narrow pathway between mountains. It's a snowy cave with weaker vampires called Vampire Thrall and more powerful vampires, which are just titled "Vampire". They may rise a challenge for lower level characters. I was somewhere between levels 10-15 with an Khajiit assassin and Master difficulty when doing this, and it was a challenge. Bows are handy here due you can shoot between bars of the doors in many places. Be sure to have cure disease potions with you, fire spells should work fine, and anything resist magicka, or drain magicka will help against the end boss Vighar the Vampire, that is mage.

Enter the cave and head down the path to the first room, where is just one Vampire Thrall, peace of cake. Take wooden stairs up the balcony and loot the chest in there. Walk down the stairs and continue path down - watch out a trigger plate which will set a trap on roof - walk close near either wall, down untill you come into a large room with wooden stars leading to below. Here will be a few Vampire Thralls and one regular Vampire that may raise little bit of challenge. If you're an archer with decent sneaking, it should be easy. Go into sneak mode, go to a wooden planks area and shoot once, when they come searching for you sneak (you have time) back to the northern pathway where you came from, inside the cave - wait behind a corner and observe your compass - when they leave, get back to the wooden planks and shoot again. Repeat untill you get them all.

If you're an archer, pick vampires from here with a bow one by one. When you hit, fall back to the cave you came from to behind a corner.

At this point you may go up the stairs to balcony ahead on high left and check Alchemy Lab out there, spend your ingredients to discover new effects. Now continue to west, it's last part of first level of this cave. There are several Vampire Thralls and perhaps regular one too. Again, if you're an archer, repeat same than last room. Sneak to the room, pick a target and shoot with bow, sneak back to cave you came from and wait behind corner 'till they come to search and leave back to their spot. If you do this right, they'll never search you far enough to reveal you from behind the corner.

Once you've gotten them all, head up to the room and take stairs down to a pit in the middle of the room. When in the pit, check southern side of it, there's a few book cases and tables. On one of the tables find a book called "Bero's Speech" and read it. Grants you +Destruction skill.

Go to north from the pit and follow cave path untill it leads you to second level, Haemar's Shame. Enter. Follow path until first big room, you can see some large spider eggs and there'll be one large Frostbite Spider. It can be moderately though, however if you've got archery skills once again, you can shoot it once and then head back behind a corner. If it doesn't notice you, it comes close but turns back always just in time. Otherwise just melee it or kill with fire.

Proceed to southern passage, on the way you come across Arcane Enchanter at a table, if you got any useless things to disenchant or stuff to enchant, do it and then continue towards west. You come across a creek, follow it and take turn to right at the end (you cannot really lose since there's only one way) - this leads you to Shrine Of Clavicus Vile. You'll also notice that the Dog is already here waiting.

The Shrine of Clavicus Vile

While at the Shrine, walk in front of it and talk to Clavicus. It appears you did him a favor - for he was begged by vampires in the cave to set them free - but now you killed them instead. Now you get to ask for a favor. Tell him you came to unite him with the dog, there's no matter actually what choice you pick, Clavicus will still ask you to get him an certain Axe for he wants to have some fun with it (that's why his name is probably Clavicus the "Vile"). To help the dog, accept Clavicus's Quest to get the axe. It's located in Rimerock Burrow (map marker was added to your map). Now take your direction towards south and walk stairs behind the Shrine, follow up to get out of the cave.

Check "Magic Tab" in the menu and under it "Active Effects" to see if you're infected by vampire disease - check for unwanted effects - if you are then drink cure disease (as it might be irreversible if waited too long).

The next step of the Quest takes you very far, almost other end of the map. Rimerock Burrow is located in the most southwestern corner of Skyrim map. To get there fast, if you'vent got a marker, you should get first to Whiterun. If you'vent got it either, go to Riverwood and then head up straight to north to enter Whiterun. While there, pass the farm and close by the main gates. Before the gates there are stables and in front of them should be a carriage ride, which will directly take you to Solidute. At here you can get a companion from Whiterun at Inn if you already didn't have one, and get healing potions as well as resist magicka, for you've to kill a make on the way. So prepare that in mind. When you're ready, get back to the carriage and ask him to take you to Solitude for 50 Gold.

When entering Solitude, take road straight to west and follow it. Rimerock Burrow is on northern side of the large mountain you're climbing. But it's not on below it, it's on almost on top of the mountain level. So what you want to do is follow the road as high on the mountain top that you can to the west. This way, if miss the correct way down to the right ridge, you can at least carefully climb your way down to the cave. Because if you end up too low, you cannot climb up and you've got a lot of walking to do again. Now try to find right road down from the top when you close in the cave, but if you don't go above it - Save Game! - and come down carefully. If you fail you can load up.

Rimerock Burrow is a small cavern with no more than one large room. I'ts located in very northwestern corner of the map, quite high on the mountain, on a ridge almost way to the top. It has mostly Flame Atronachs and one mage called Sebastian Lort. Prepare for magical attacks and you should be ok.

Rimerock Burrow map

Enter Rimerock burrow and move to first and the last large room. It has but one Flame Atronach in front and a mage Sebastian Lort above the balcony on the back. He will most likely attack when you engange fight with the Atronach. I used Drain Magicka potions to take him out easier, he didn't cast on full potential. Earlier on without and Drain Magicka he conjured second Flame Atronach, which can be a pain since the mage is quite strong on his own.

Once you finish him up, follow stairs to balcony and on left side check table, there's the axe you're looking for. Grab it and continue to Southern cave passage, don't worry, there won't be more enemies here. Follow the path and you'll come to a dead end with some treasures. First of all on right side of dead end is an end table and on it is a book called "2920, Hearth Fire, v9" - read and it grants you + Conjuration. On western end of this dead-end loot a chest, should have Spell Tome: Fury, gold, and magical item.

Head back and leave the cave, go directly back to Haemar's Shame by fast-travel. You'll have to run through whole cave again, but since you were fast, enemies have not respawned yet. When you enter the cave, if you have a companion, it most likely will disappear. There's no way around this. Just proceed all the way back to the Shrine of Clavicus Vile. Talk to the Shine and give the axe. Clavicus is happy and enquires whether you'd like to keep the axe. He gives you two choices:

1. Kill the dog with the axe - you get to keep the axe

2. Refuse killing the dog - he threathens to turn you into worm, but eventually let's you go and rewards you with a Masque of Clavicus Vile. Its stats are: +20% to prices, +10% to speechcraft, +5% to magic resistance , armor rating 25, value 1277 Gold - pretty good early on game

Take your pick and the Quest is complete!

Rewards: An magical axe or Mask of the Clavicus Vile

Walk past the shrine to up the stairs to south and you're outside. Fast travel back to Falkreath and tell Lod the dog's gone. He'll give you only 25 Gold. Better than nothing I guess. This leaves me wonder would there been third choice for reward for bringing the dog back to him at some point? Way or another, you're done. But you still got a Quest to do. (At this point if Dengeir The Stuhn didn't show up at Inn earlier, he'll be there now at least. You'll do him the quest about breaking into Lod's house and getting a letter, this will grant you the last citizen to help for Jarl).

You should now do second quest by Dengeir, unlike the first one of investigating Lod's house, this one's actually harder. It involves one quite large dungeon with several vampires and tough boss at the end. Prepare against magical attacks in this case too!

Talk to Dengeir about an open grave on the graveyard, and he'll explain you following: many people think there's been a graverobber, but things aren't that good way. Someone has robbed a tombstone from a grave of Dengeir's ancestor, who turns out to be an undead vampire. Now the stone off the way vampire has escaped out to a fort to live with other of his kind. This knows more vampire hunt to you, so stack up a few cure diseases, resist magicka and heal potions at least to make it less painful experience.

You need to travel to Bloodlet Throne and slay the vampire (map marker was added to your map). It's located on eastern mountains from Falkreath, deep within. A quick way is to fast travel Helgen and once again take the eastern gate out of town. This time when you come to two-split crossroads almost right away, take right path towards more south. You'll walk along this road for quite a while.

You'll see soon a Fort Neugrad on your left, take a map marker, and continue the road up all the way untill the snowy top. Soon the landscape will turn more snow covered, at this point close by there's a random enemy pack. First time I got Bandit Outlaws and Adept Mage, on a second some more bandits and a Spriggan, so be prepared for one quite tough enemy at least. After killing these enemies, you'll very soon come across a spot where there is dense woods on your right side.

Dense woods on right

You know you're close by now, split from the road to your right and rush through the woods. You'll come to Bloodlet Throne fort very quickly.

Entrance to Bloodlet Throne

Map of Bloodlet Throne

Bloodlet Throne is decently large fort-like dungeon with several Vampires and Vampire Thralls. It's located southeast from Falkreath and Helgen, the best way to get there is from Helgen to western mountains and take a path up to south. The last room of Bloodlet Throne contains a Vampire Mage of some sort and some wolves along few regular vampires. It's best to have cure disease, lots of healing potions and resist magicka items with. Bow will become extremely handy due several of the doors being jail style doors with bars, where you can shoot arrows through between the bars.

Walk stairs up and enter the fort. When you enter, right in front of you is a trap attacked to a first door and triggered by a plate in fort of it. Watch this out and round the plate from either side of the room.

A fire trap in the very first room

Proceed rounding the trap and you enter a large room, view to your left. There is a window with bars and you can see to a level below. The vampires in this room are there on below. There are three or four Vampire Fledgings and Vampire Thralls. Not too tough ones. Once you're at the window, you can sneak and archer down few of them from here. Once you've cleared the room, walk stairs down below and then take pace to to eastern door in the room. You'll enter small room with a round table and only one Vampire Fledging, take him out and proceed towards a northern cave.

This is where things get bit tougher and amount of vampires grow. You'll enter a very large cave-like room with several vampires, mostly Fledging and Thralls. Although quite easy, they are still many. There are probably 7-8 Vampires all together. There's a table in front of you bit further where is two vampires, there might be more on right side stairs leading high, and there is definetely even more on the right hand side bridge you can see in next picture. However they will have to go around a bit to get to you. If you're assassin type of character with bow, it's easy to take the ones you see at the table out long range. If you use sneak mode, they hardly ever search far as where the picture is taken from. Note that you might not be able to see the ones on right side bridge from here, but when you proceed after killing the ones at the table, they'll most likely notice you. If you use bow however, you won't face too many at once attacking you so it should be moderately easy case.

A large room with several vampires, front, high right and high left.

When you're done with this room, proceed up the stairs on right side - notice that there's Arcane Enchanter on the way up - if you have anything to disenchant or enchant now it's the time. On the top, follow a cave path towards west - you'll come to three way crossroads. The middle and rightmost will run a circle, while left one leads you forward closer to Vighar. At this time take right one and go thru jail door. You come to a small room, and in north end of it there's a Book called Incident In Necrom - read it and you'll get +Illusion. The table also should have magic weapons, few magic scrolls and potions. These might come handy later on.

Check the next room to west for some more magic scrolls and potions, then return back to three-way crossroads. This time take left pathway and walk on, take turn to left at the end and cross a bridge, turn right into a slope. Follow it down to a gate with bars. This is the grande finale. In the middle of the room is few wolves and behind them high on the balcony is Vighar. Along him hes got some more help, two Vampire Thralls and one Bandit. The rest are not so tough but Vighar is quite challenging. He will use some magic, I think Drain Life, whatever it is, it hurts bad.

Now you can do this the hard way, or you can do this the easy way. Hard way would be pulling a pull chain right side of the gate and open up the gates. They will all charge you then. The easy way would be again, taking your bow, walking next to the gate in sneak mode and shooting them one by one. You might want to ask your companion stay back bit further if you decide to shoot arrows, or otherwise he will rush towards the gate and surely get slaughtered by Vighar's spells. I messed this up myself and my companion died. You should probably start the killing with regular Vampires and kill Vighar last. They cannot open the gate, so shoot at them and when they get close to gate, fall back out of their range and continue shoot arrows through between gate bars. This way it'll be easy.

Shoot from the other side of the gate - from safe range

When you've finished taking them all down, open up the gate with the pull chain and enter the room. On right side there is another gate with a pull chain that leads up to balcony. On left side is few wolves behind bars. Open up the gate with the chain, wolves wont get released, move up the stairs to balcony. There's a switch up there in front of benches, but it's a waste of time. The Switch will only open up lower gates to release two wolves but their cages have no anything to loot anyway, so you'd better just head up to eastern path which will take you back to the very first large room.

Along the way, there's a chest, loot it for a few good magic items. I got Staff of The Flame Atronach. Proceed to a barred door, raise the bar by clicking it and bingo you're almost at the beginning again, now head out this rotten hellhole.

Once again check "Magic Tab" in the menu and under it "Active Effects" to see if you're infected by vampire disease - check for unwanted effects - if you are then drink cure disease (as it might be irreversible if waited too long).

Travel back to Falkreath and enter Dead Man's Drink Inn - there talk to Dengeir and tell his ancestor Vighar is dead.

Reward: 200 Gold which is quite lame for decently hard quest so hopefully you got some magic items worth something out of it.

That's it folks! This is our Falkreath Guide so far. You should now have gotten all quests possible to get here. There's one additional one we haven't described yet and that is triggered by finding a Book in Dengeir's House called "Forbidden Legend", reading this will start Miscellaneous Quest called "Investigate the Gauldur Legend". You can go for it if you like. Maybe we'll add this later on to this Guide.

Heading out for new adventures in new town?

There's also one quest-line leading you to city of Markarth if you're ready for to take your next step and move out to next major city, and it is actually activated in Falkreath. After you've finished all Falkreath quests, you should be able to find a man called Sam Guevenne in Dead Man's Drink Inn. He'll cheat you into a drinking competition, eventually you feel oozy and he lures you elsewhere.

When you wake asleep, you found yourself at Temple Of Dibella, which is actually located in city Markarth, and you've caused a mess in temple while being drunk, or that's what the worshippers claim. You can get two quests at the temple: find a clue from Senna that leads you after Sam in quest A Night To Remember - and break into Inner Sanctum level and interrupt the ceremony, to make this up you'll have to get them a specific girl from Karthwasten in quest The Heart Of Dibella. Check out Inner Sanctum for some goodies and loot if you're a thief. More about these quests later, if we do Markarth guide, for they belong to this area.